PATH Rising Summer Program

The early morning sounds of the alarm clock are an immediate reminder that you’ve signed up for more than a summer job… you’ve signed up for a lifestyle.  After getting ready quickly and grabbing your costume on the way out the door, you’re headed over to St. Augustine High School to set up your classroom.

Grateful that you spent time the night before making the robot soccer “field” on giant paper, you quickly set up the classroom for the robot soccer matches and put the finishing touches on the reflection sheets you’ll use after the big matches.

After prepping, you head outside to the sunny sidewalk for the morning team meeting where you announce that the bus greeting for the day will be “slo-mo cheering”.

The bus arrives, the children are (slowly) welcomed back, and all the PATH Team and PATHfinders head to the courtyard for a game of “Head to Head Hopscotch”.

After the game, everyone goes to the cafeteria for breakfast and conversations about favorite inventions.

After a quick cleaning of the tables, everyone heads back to the courtyard for “Raise the Roof” which includes a large group line dance and a conversation about the value of following directions.

You then jump right into Science class with the robot soccer matches, with your Instructional Coach (IC) observing as your 10 students engage in the activity and share how their previous lessons helped them with the coding and problem-solving.

The next period is a planning period, so you and your IC discuss what went well and what could be improved for about 20 minutes, and then you get to work on setting the room back up, carefully remembering your IC’s advice about thoughtful questions to write on the board to kickstart student thinking.

During your second planning period, you spend about 15 minutes observing your friend’s Math class and the rest of the break writing feedback on the students’ robotics reflections.

Next is lunch, and it is filled with lively conversations about the adventures of the morning’s classes, broken up from time to time by the sounds of college cheers and joyful singing.

Then everyone heads to the theater for “M&M Time”, where you perform in a skit as a comical character working on following directions on your path to college.

Quickly changing out of your goofy costume, you hustle back to your classroom to facilitate a small-group discussion about lessons learned regarding the day’s theme of following directions.

You then shift gears as you teach your Breakdance elective, preparing the students for their end-of-summer showcase.

Transitioning into Physical Activity Time (P.A.T.), you organize a big game of soccer.

After cooling down and gathering belongings, you lead your students to the chapel for “God In All Things”- a time of group prayer and “shout-outs” for the great work of the day.

As the students exit the chapel and head for the bus, you wrap up the last conversations of the day with your 7th grader who has really shown improvement in critically thinking about the coding process.

After waving goodbye to the bus, you head back inside for a faculty meeting to assess the day and clarify details for tomorrow before joining with tomorrow’s performers to run through the skeletal script of tomorrow’s improvised skit.

Finally, you take the last 45 minutes to finish providing feedback on the reflections and to create the activity for tomorrow’s class.

As you and the PATH team leave St. Augustine, you all agree on a time for dinner that night and a hike on Saturday.